Older Than Dirt

The  way it used to be, only OLD people will remember this  stuff


Hey  Dad,"  one of my kids asked the other day, "What was your favorite fast food   when you were growing up?"

"We  didn't  have fast food when I was growing up," I informed him. "All the food   was slow."
"C'mon dad, seriously, Where did you   eat?"

"It  was a place called 'at home,'" I explained.  "Grandma cooked every day and when  Grandpa got home from work, we sat  down together at the dining room table, and  if I didn't like what she  put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I  did like  it."

By  this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he  was going to suffer  serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the  part about how I had to have  permission to leave the table. But here  are some other things I would have  told him about my childhood if I  figured his system could have handled  it:

Some  parents  NEVER owned their own house, wore Levis , set foot on a golf course, traveled   out of the country or had a credit card. In their later years they had   something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at  Sears  Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears AND Roebuck. Either way, there is  no Roebuck  anymore. Maybe he died.

My parents never drove me to  soccer practice.  This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer.  I had a bicycle that  weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one  speed, (slow) We didn't have a  television in our house until I was 11,  but my grandparents had one before  that. It was, of course, black and  white, but they bought a piece of colored  plastic to cover the screen.  The top third was blue, like the sky, and the  bottom third was green,  like grass. The middle third was red. It was perfect  for programs that  had scenes of fire trucks riding across someone's lawn on a  sunny day.  Some people had a lens taped to the front of the TV to make the   picture look larger.

I  was 13 before I tasted my first  pizza, it was called "pizza pie." When I bit  into it, I burned the  roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down,  plastered itself  against my chin and burned that, too. It's still the best  pizza I ever  had.

We  didn't have a car until I was 15. Before that, the only  car in our family was  my grandfather's Ford. He called it a  "machine."

I never had a  telephone in my room. The only phone  in the house was in the living room and  it was on a party line. Before  you could dial, you had to listen and make sure  some people you didn't  know weren't already using the line.

Pizzas were  not delivered  to our home. But milk  was.

All  newspapers were delivered  by boys and all boys delivered newspapers. I  delivered a newspaper,  six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which I  got to keep 2  cents. I had to get up at 4 AM every morning. On Saturday, I had  to  collect the 42 cents from my customers. My favorite customers were the ones   who gave me 50 cents and told me to keep the change. My least favorite   customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection   day.


If  you grew up in a generation before there was  fast food, you may want to share  some of these memories with your  children or grandchildren. Just don't blame  me if they bust a gut  laughing.

Growing up isn't what it used to be, is   it?


MEMORIES   from a friend:

My  Dad is  cleaning out my grandmother's house (she died in December) and he   brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle In the bottle top was a  stopper with  a bunch of holes in it. I knew immediately what it was,  but my daughter had no  idea. She thought they had tried to make it a  salt shaker or something. I knew  it as the bottle that sat on the end  of the ironing board to "sprinkle"  clothes with because we didn't have  steam irons. Man, I am  old.

How  many  do you remember?

Head  lights dimmer switches on the  floor.

Ignition   switches on the dashboard.
Heaters mounted on the inside of the  fire  wall.
Real ice boxes.
Pant leg clips for bicycles without  chain  guards.
Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.
Using  hand signals for  cars without turn signals.

Older  Than  Dirt Quiz: Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were   told about Ratings at the bottom.

1. Blackjack chewing   gum
2.  Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3.  Candy cigarettes
4.  Soda pop machines that dispensed glass  bottles
5. Coffee shops or diners  with tableside juke boxes
6.  Home milk delivery in glass bottles with  cardboard stoppers
7.  Party lines
8. Newsreels before the movie
9.  P.F. Flyers
10.  Butch wax
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix   (OLive-6933)
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy  Doody
14. 45 RPM  records
15. S&H Green  Stamps
16. Hi-fi's
17. Metal ice  trays with lever
18. Mimeograph  paper
19. Blue flashbulb
20.  Packards
21. Roller skate keys
22.  Cork   popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub   wringers
26.  Stanley Home Products
27.  Fuller  Brush
28.  Door to Door Sales Man


If you  remembered 0-5 = You're still young,
If  you remembered 6-10 = You  are getting older,
If you remembered 11-15 =  Don't tell your  age,
If you remembered 16-28 = You're older than  dirt!

I   might be older than dirt but those memories are the  best   part of my life.

Don't  forget to pass this  along!!
Especially to all your  really  OLD  friends....